


What You Want

by bibliomaniac



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Artists, Alternate Universe - Future, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Anxiety, Cyborgs, Heavy Angst, Implied/Referenced Character Death, M/M, Major Illness, Misunderstanding Lasagna, Moderate burn, Slow Burn, i feel like this needs more angst tags, i mean...ish, so let's say uh, there are warnings at the beginning of chapters that need them so please read those, there have been slower burns in existence, there we go
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-10
Updated: 2017-03-15
Packaged: 2018-10-02 08:54:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 12
Words: 14,231
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10213979
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bibliomaniac/pseuds/bibliomaniac
Summary: Katsuki Yuuri is sick. Nobody knows why, and nobody knows how to make him better...except, perhaps, for Yuuri himself.Enter Victor Nikiforov, unwilling cyborg. He never intended to save Yuuri's life. All he wants is to regain his memories.Sometimes life doesn't really care about what you want.





	1. Small

**Author's Note:**

> brin, you say. brin...please stop. for all of us, but more importantly for you.
> 
> no, i say, i will not stop starting new fanfics without finishing the old ones
> 
> anyway here's robots

You know how they say your life flashes in front of you before you die? That isn’t true, at least not for him. When he dies, everything just—stops, for a moment. He has what seems like forever to look up at the sky, to think, _well, I suppose this is it._

_But it doesn’t have to be,_ a treacherous voice whispers. _If you run the program—_

_No,_ he responds. _This is a fitting end. I won’t ruin it by giving myself to them._

_A fitting end? To what life? Never noticed, never loved—_

_You don’t have to rub it in,_ he thinks, almost amused. _I am aware of all of those things._

_But if you run the program, you will have a chance to become something better, be a part of something bigger._

_I am perfectly fine,_ he thinks, _with being small._

The voice shuts off, and he makes his peace with it all.

As it happens, though, destiny doesn’t always care about what you choose—and neither did the company who made his implant.

Victor Nikiforov dies, and the program automatically runs, and his candidacy is submitted to the Initiative.

 

* * *

 

“It’s creepy, Phichit,” Yuuri protests to his presently holographic best friend. “They were real people once. I know they’ve been—mindwiped, or whatever—”

“Reprogrammed!”

Yuuri shudders. “Sure, fine, but—it’s not fair to them.”

“Yuuri, they all chose this! They wanted to help people like you.”

“Like me?”

Phichit waves off Yuuri’s unimpressed gaze. “Well, you know. People who are sick.”

“People who won’t be getting better, you mean.”

Phichit scowls. “You’re the only person who thinks that.”

“Me and all of the doctors.”

Phichit purses his lips, pointedly ignoring Yuuri. “Anyway, the point is, I can’t be there with you, and—you need somebody there for you. Somebody who knows what they’re doing and somebody who can’t, well, catch it.”

Yuuri sighs, laying back against his pillows. “I’ve already told you it’s not contagious.” 

“That’s not what your precious doctors think,” Phichit shoots back. “And there’s something else, too.”

“What?”

“I already ordered one,” Phichit says with a smile that’s only vaguely apologetic. “It’ll be there in a few days.” 

“Phichit!”

“I’m just trying to help, Yuuri! You’re my best friend, and I can’t—” Phichit’s face suddenly crumples. “I can’t—”

“Oh, Phichit,” Yuuri says quietly. There’s nothing he can really say to that. “Okay. I won’t send—I’m not going to use ‘it’, Phichit, what gender are they?”

“A guy. He’s actually pretty attractive,” Phichit says, forcing a smile. “Maybe it’ll turn out like one of those crappy romances you love so much.”

Yuuri rolls his eyes. “Yeah, right. Well, I won’t send him back at the door, anyway.”

“Thanks, Yuuri. I think it’ll be good for you, you know?”

“What, boning a cyborg?” Yuuri asks, mostly because he knows it’ll cheer Phichit up.

He smiles at Phichit’s peals of laughter, but mostly he feels like screaming into one of his incredibly comfortable pillows.

 

* * *

 

A few days pass, and sure enough, the delivery is left outside the door. Yuuri really isn’t supposed to be getting out of bed, much less doing heavy lifting, but he’s not going to leave the gigantic box on his doorstep either. His neighbors are awfully nosy. They’ll definitely talk.

He manages to get the package in through hacking coughs, and he stands staring at it for a while. It looks almost like a coffin, all wrapped up like that.

He cuts off the wrapping and opens up the box. Inside is…well, inside is a bunch of bubble wrap and those irritating packing peanuts (which, come on, it’s the 22nd century, you’d think society would have gotten rid of those awful things), but inside all of _that_ is a man with carefully gelled silver hair—no way that’s natural—dressed in a black jumpsuit. Which, good. At least the company aren’t full of perverts.

He fishes out the thick information pamphlet, already starting to feel exhausted, and mutters, “Is there an on button or something?”

“No,” comes a slightly accented voice in English. “I’m always on.”

Yuuri screams and scrambles backward. This induces another round of coughing, which the man in the box sits up to observe curiously.

“Are you all right? Do you require my assistance?”

“Your—you—I could have died!”

“From the coughing?”

“From the heart attack I just nearly had!”

The man pauses, then smiles disconcertingly. He really is quite attractive, not that Yuuri cares. “I’m guessing that’s a joke.”

“No, I literally have a weak heart.”

“Oh.” He looks almost ashamed. “I apologize. I will refrain from sudden speaking from now on.”

Yuuri frowns. “You don’t have to do that. It was just—I thought you were off, or in…charging stasis, or—”

The man says, “I don’t have a charging stasis. I am equipped with a superbattery that renews itself automatically. I can approximate sleep, though.”

Yuuri responds by coughing some more. The man’s face changes to concern as he gets out of the box and walks over to where Yuuri is sitting. “Let me help you to your bed—”

Yuuri’s eyes widen. “No! Don’t touch me!”

“Oh—I apologize—” 

“No, just—nobody can touch me. Unless they have gloves, or something. It’s nothing personal.”

“I don’t really take things personally,” the man says wryly. “But I will respect your wishes. Do you have a spare pair of gloves?”

“Um, yeah. Next to my bed. For the doctors, mostly.”

“Excellent. I will put on a pair then help you up, if you don’t mind waiting.”

“Yeah. Sure.” Yuuri exhales slowly, then mutters in Japanese, “This is so weird.”

The man responds calmly in flawless Japanese, “Only as weird as you make it. I could be calling you master.”

Yuuri huffs at that.

The man returns with a pair of gloves on and helps Yuuri up the stairs, one at a time. Yuuri’s breathing is labored at this point, but it sort of helps to have someone supporting him.

He gets into bed, sighing into his comfortable pillows, and stares out the window longingly.

“Anything else I can do for you?” the man asks.

Yuuri closes his eyes for a moment, then opens them. “Yeah. You can tell me your name so I don’t have to call you ‘the man’ anymore.”

The man pauses. “I don’t…they called me something, but you can personalize—”

“What did they call you?” Yuuri cuts him off tersely.

The man hesitates once more, then says, “Victor.”

“Okay. Victor.”

Victor smiles, a strange look in his eyes, then says, “I’ll let you rest.” 

Yuuri doesn’t say he wants to do anything but rest, because his body isn’t going to allow him to do anything but. He doesn’t tell Victor how tired he is of this small existence—how much he wishes he could just give up already and let go. 

He says, “Thank you,” and he goes to sleep.


	2. Stripped

“So, how is he?” Phichit asks excitedly after Yuuri’s woken up from his midday nap.

Yuuri shrugs. “Fine, I guess. He’s very…polite.”

“Well, yeah, he’s a robot.”

“Cyborg!” Yuuri admonishes, frowning. “It’s different, Phichit, don’t be inconsiderate.”

“Fine. He’s a cyborg who’s been reprogrammed—”

“—brainwashed—”

“ _Reprogrammed_ to be polite.”

“Yeah, well, it’s still weird. I’ve had enough of people being polite for a lifetime. People get so nice when you’re dying.”

“You’re not dying,” Phichit says with a pinched smile. “And you have me. I’m never nice.”

“That’s true. It’s probably because you hate me so much.”

“So much.” Phichit pauses. “If I were nicer this is the part where I’d say I do actually love you, you know, and you’d probably kiss me or something since you’re secretly in love with me.”

Yuuri snorts. “Who’s the one who watches too many romance films now?”

“Still you.”

“Whatever.”

There’s a comfortable silence, before Phichit draws the camera closer and wiggles his eyebrows. “And is he as hot as he looked in the pictures?”

Yuuri looks around to make sure Victor isn’t eavesdropping, then laughs. “I don’t know what pictures you saw, but yeah, he’s pretty hot.”

 

* * *

 

Later that night, Victor is cooking something—like, actually cooking, not reconstituting a meal, which is weird—and he’s not talking. While Yuuri has only known him for half a day, less if you count his naps, Victor still seems uncharacteristically silent.

“Victor?” he tries. “You…okay?”

Victor turns, a thoughtful expression on his face. “You’re asking me if I’m all right?”

“Yes? Is that not allowed?”

Yuuri is going for joking, but Victor shrugs. “Not disallowed, just uncommon. According to my…training.”

“Oh.” Yuuri fidgets in his seat. “Uh, sorry.”

“Who’s being overly polite now?”

Yuuri blinks, then his jaw drops. “You heard that?”

“My hearing is very good. I can’t turn it off.”

“No, uh…sorry. Again. I shouldn’t have been talking about you like that. You’re fine.”

Victor’s brow creases. “I’m not offended, if that’s what you’re worried about. I’m concerned I’m not meeting your expectations.”

Yuuri stares. “My…expectations.”

“Yes. I can be less polite, if you’d like.”

Yuuri silently curses Phichit. He doesn’t have anywhere near the energy to deal with this. “I think I’d just like you to be yourself.”

It’s Victor’s turn to stare. “Myself?”

“Yeah? I know you’ve been, uh, trained, but surely you have, like…a personality.”

The strange look is back in Victor’s eyes. “I think I did.”

“You mean…before?”

The look is gone. “The past is unimportant. There is only now and the future, and we are the future.” He sounds like he’s reciting something.

Yuuri turns away. He really can’t deal with this. “Fine. Whatever. You can be whatever you want, Mr. Future.”

Victor doesn’t say anything, just goes back to cooking.

Yuuri rests his hand on his chin, then straightens up as if electrocuted. “Wait, does that mean you heard—the whole thing about—”

“I heard all of it.”

“So, even the part where we were talking about your, um, looks.”

“Yes.”

Yuuri double curses Phichit, mumbling, “Great. Awesome.”

“Are those more comments about my appearance?”

Yuuri shoots Victor a dirty look. Victor’s lips are twitching like he’s trying to keep from smiling.

Yuuri is going to literally find out how to hex someone, and he is going to hex Phichit.

 

* * *

 

His parents call every night, just before he goes to sleep. It’s always the same thing, really—how was your day, how are you doing, have the doctors said anything interesting (which really means, have they finally figured out what’s wrong with you). His answers are usually the same, too. Fine, fine, no.

But today, Victor is padding around in the background, and his mom raises an eyebrow. “Have something you want to tell us?”

Yuuri looks over at Victor. “Oh, yeah. Phichit ordered me…him.”

“Honey, I thought you were contagious,” Yuuri’s mom says, concerned. “It’s your business what you want to do in private, but if you’re getting someone else sick—”

“No!” Yuuri yelps. “He’s from the Initiative, Mom.”

“Oh.” Yuuri’s parents peer at the screen, and Yuuri’s mom gives a small wave, which Victor returns. “I thought you didn’t approve of that.”

Yuuri drags his hand over his face. “He’s right here, Mom.”

“I know, but he doesn’t care,” Yuuri’s dad pipes up. “Does he?”

“I’m fine,” Victor says politely.

“See? He’s fine. Anyway, you voted against it, right? You were so upset when it passed.”

“I did, and I was.” Yuuri sighs. “I don’t think it’s right to do this to people, to—strip them of everything they are and put them to work.” He peeks at Victor, who is trying very hard to look like he’s not listening and failing. “But Phichit made me promise not to send him back, and—well, if I do send him back, somebody else will just get him and treat him worse, and—”

Yuuri’s mom holds up a placating hand. “We’re not judging you, honey, just curious.”

“Well. Yeah. He’s here now.”

“All right.” Yuuri’s mom smiles peacefully. “Well, I hope he helps. You know how bad we feel about not being able to come, but—”

“Yeah, I know. It’s fine.” He fakes a yawn. “I’m actually pretty tired, so—”

“We’ll let you get to sleep. Talk to you tomorrow.”

He waves as the holoscreen switches off.

Victor is gazing at Yuuri with assessing eyes, and Yuuri can’t take it anymore. He snaps, “What?”

“When you said it was fine they couldn’t come, you were lying.”

Yuuri glares at Victor.

Victor spreads his hands, a kind of shrug. “You said you didn’t want polite.”

Yuuri relents. “I’m not contagious, but nobody believes me because nobody knows what it is.”

Victor is silent for a moment, processing. Finally, he says, “You sound like you do.”

“What?”

“Know what it is.”

Yuuri stares at Victor. Then he says, “I’m tired. I’d appreciate it if you’d let me sleep.”

They both know that one’s a lie. Neither of them bring it up.


	3. Nikiforov

It’s odd, adjusting to living with Victor. Victor tries to be as unobtrusive as possible, but he’s still always there, silently watching for signs of Yuuri getting worse.

And he does, like he has been for the past few months. He can’t really manage getting out of bed most days anymore. It’s actually probably a good thing Victor is there. Victor prepares him food when he can eat it and picks up deliveries from the bottom floor of nutrients when he can’t hold down anything. Yuuri’s neighbors have definitely seen Victor by now, and they’re definitely talking, but it’s not like there’s anything he can do about it.

Yuuri and Victor are talking too. Not much, or anything, not like they’re friends, but Yuuri is still always trying to get Victor to stop being so obedient and do more of what he wants to do. He doesn’t know if he’s successful or not—Victor is still helpful, but he says he wants to be like that. Yuuri doesn’t have the energy to contest him on it most days.

It’s not exactly a comfortable existence, but it’s what he’s become used to. Everything just kind of settles, stops, marked only by the passing of days on his holoscreen and the worsening of Yuuri’s condition.

That is, until Victor goes into the locked room.

Victor is sort of like a Roomba sometimes, infuriatingly so. He wants to clean everything, all the time. Yuuri supposes Victor is probably just bored.

Anyway, he’s been asking to clean the locked room for a month, and Yuuri has always said no. But that day, he asks when Yuuri is halfway asleep, and Yuuri says something like ‘if you can get the door open’, and Victor brightens, and he lockpicks the door.

Victor comes back into the room with that strange look back in his eyes, holding a painting.

“Yuuri.”

Yuuri startles awake. “Wh—huh?”

“You were a painter?”

“Yeah?” That’s when Yuuri realizes. “Victor, I told you not to go in there!”

“I got the door open.”

Yuuri goes over his words of the past hour and groans. “I didn’t mean that. I was asleep.”

Victor ignores that. “Why didn’t you want me to know?”

Yuuri sighs. “It’s not like that, exactly, just—I didn’t want to be reminded of it.”

“Why?”

“Because I can’t do it anymore.” Yuuri smiles bitterly, raising his shaking hands as proof. “It’s not like I was ever much good, anyway.”

Victor frowns. “I liked them. They lacked confidence, maybe a bit of technical skill, but they were conceptually sound and aesthetically pleasing.”

Yuuri snorts. “Was art critique part of your training?”

“No.” Victor pauses. “I don’t know. But what I wanted to ask about was this one.”

Yuuri squints at the canvas, gasping. “That’s—you can’t be touching that! Put that back, right now! That’s a Nikiforov original!”

“Nikiforov?”

“He’s—well, he’s my favorite painter, and that was so expensive, and you’re just touching it like—put it _back_ , Victor!”

“Why isn’t it in here, then?”

“What?”

“If he’s your favorite.”

Yuuri clenches his teeth, then ekes out, “I don’t deserve to look at it. Put it back, Victor.”

Victor takes another glance, considering. “It looks really familiar.”

“Maybe you saw a print of it when you were being brainwashed, which clearly didn’t work, because you are not _listening_ to me!” Yuuri yells.

Victor stares, then smiles, calm. “I’ll put it back now.”

Yuuri is sitting in bed, mouth open and eyebrows drawn together in horror. “Victor, I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean—”

“You’re right. My job is to listen to you.”

“But—I mean—”

“Is there anything else I can do for you?”

“Victor.”

“I’ll leave you be then.”

“Victor,” Yuuri calls out helplessly. But Victor is already gone, vanished around the corner.

 

* * *

 

If the house had been lukewarm before, it’s practically artic now. Victor doesn’t talk at all, and Yuuri has no idea how to make things right.

About a week after the Nikiforov incident, Victor comes into Yuuri’s room for the day only to find Yuuri missing. Victor’s eyes widen. This isn’t good.

He searches frantically all over the house, but he doesn’t find Yuuri until he checks the locked room as an afterthought. He finds Yuuri passed out on the floor, paints strewn on the floor around him and a painting in front of him. The lines are shaky, the coloring imprecise, but it’s unmistakably a copy of the Nikiforov.

Biting his lip, he carries Yuuri outside of the room and back to his bed—how did he even walk all this way?—and tucks him in.

It takes a few hours, but Yuuri wakes up, Victor watching him inscrutably.

“What was so important about painting that that you would risk your health?” Victor asks.

Yuuri coughs. “I made it for you. You seemed like you liked it, so…”

“Yuuri…”

“I’m sorry. I never should have treated you like that.”

“I don’t think you understand. I wasn’t offended, I was just trying to be…” Victor stops when he notices that Yuuri’s eyes are glassy and that he’s clearly not listening to a word Victor is saying.

Yuuri continues, “I just…Nikiforov is really important to me, even if I don’t deserve to have him.”

Victor quietly gets a wet cloth to put on Yuuri’s forehead, which is burning up. “You say that a lot, that you don’t deserve things. Why?”

“Because I bring death,” Yuuri breathes, eyes falling shut.

“What do you mean?”

But Yuuri is already sleeping again. Victor figures he probably deserves it.

He returns to the room and stares down at the painting thoughtfully. It really does look familiar, but not in the way of something you’ve seen in passing. More…like something you’ve stared at for weeks, like something you’ve had in your brain forever…

When it clicks, it’s not earth-shattering or mind-boggling like he might have expected a long-lost memory returning to be. It’s just quiet—oh, this is who I was, I remember.

He was a painter. He was Nikiforov. Victor Nikiforov.

He was Victor Nikiforov, and a month and ten days ago, he died.

He just can’t seem to remember how.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> nikiforoomba
> 
> one non-mystery solved, another started


	4. Leave

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> warning: this is not a happy chapter

The first thing he says when Yuuri wakes up—for real this time, his fever broken—is, “I’m Nikiforov.”

“What?”

“The painter.”

“I know he’s a painter,” Yuuri grumbles, wiping sleep out of his eyes. “Seriously, what? Aren’t you angry at me?”

“No, I’m not angry. And I’m saying that was me. Before I was…this. Victor Nikiforov.”

Yuuri glares at him, sleep-grumpy and kind of adorable. “Bull.”

“I can probably prove it.” Victor gestures at the canvas and paints on the ground next to him. “I can paint you something.”

“Huh? I’m not going to have you spend weeks on a painting just to prove you’re my favorite painter.” Yuuri sighs, humoring him. “Do you have anyone who can vouch for you?”

“Oh! Yakov.” 

“Feltsman? Nikiforov’s art dealer?”

“Yeah! He knows what I look like.” Victor pauses. “Looked like. They cut my hair.”

Yuuri rolls his eyes. “Do you know his holoscreen address?”

Victor snorts. “It’s the 23rd century. Nobody knows anybody’s holoscreen address.”

“Fair point.” Yuuri pulls up his holoscreen, yawning, and Googles it. His personal one isn’t online, obviously, but there’s one for the business.

He calls, setting it to audio only. Someone, a girl, responds within a half minute or so.

“Hello, this is Feltsman Art. How can I help you?”

“We’d like to talk to Yakov Feltsman, if that’s all right,” Yuuri says hesitantly. 

“I’m afraid he’s very busy. Can you tell me what the nature of your business is?”

Yuuri glances at Victor, who nods. “I think Nikiforov is in my house.”

“…One moment, please.” Classical music plays, and Yuuri immediately deflates.

“I hate phone calls,” Yuuri says unhappily. “Nikiforov is in my house? Makes it sound like I have some kind of infestation—”

“Can it be an infestation if there’s only one?” Victor inquires thoughtfully.

“Clearly. This is all your fault. You’re lucky I’m nice.”

The classical music stops, and a gruff Russian-accented voice comes on the line. “Enable your video, please.”

“Oh, um…” Yuuri blushes. “I’m sort of…not…” He looks helplessly at Victor, gesturing at his pajamas.

“Yakov,” Victor cuts in.

“Victor? Is that you?”

“Yes.”

“Turn on video. I don’t believe you.”

Yuuri turns the holoscreen towards Victor. He can’t manipulate it—personal holoscreens are controlled by the implants most people have these days—but it can still see him. He turns on the video.

Yakov squints, then relaxes. “You utter bastard. Where have you been?”

“I died,” Victor says. 

“Ha. No, really.”

“Yeah, no, really. I don’t know how, but I died somehow and got enrolled in the Initiative. They wiped my memory and I only got it back because of my friend Yuuri here, who had one of my paintings.”

Yakov is staring in disbelief. “You’re not just trying to get out of that deadline, are you?”

“No.” Victor pulls down the neck of his jumpsuit, revealing the barcode that marks cyborgs from the Initiative. “No, I’m not.”

Yakov closes his eyes for a long moment. When he opens them, he mutters something in Russian under his breath. Finally, he says, “How did you die?”

“I have no idea. I’m hoping I can figure out.”

“And this…friend of yours, he’s okay with this?”

Victor looks at Yuuri, who is an even paler white than normal and is staring dead ahead. “Um, I think.”

“Well, then—”

“Anyway, I only called to prove a point. We’ll talk more later.” Victor smiles cheerfully. “Dasvidaniya!”

“What?! Victor! Vic—”

Victor leans over to Yuuri and whispers, “Cut the call. Otherwise he’ll keep yelling.”

Dazedly, Yuuri does so. 

Victor frowns at Yuuri’s appearance. “You don’t have a fever anymore. What’s wrong? Why do you—”

“You’re…you’re Nikiforov.”

“As I said.”

“You’re Nikiforov, and you saw my paintings.”

“Yes?”

“I recreated one of your paintings, that you had painted yourself, for you.”

“Also yes.”

Yuuri moans and buries his head in his knees. “Please kill me. I’m already halfway there. Murder me, right now, cold blood, no regrets—”

Victor blinks. “Wait, you’re embarrassed?”

“Yes!”

“I told you your paintings were good!”

“While you were a brainwashed cyborg zombie,” Yuuri says unhappily, peeking up at Victor.

“I’m still sort of a cyborg zombie. And still sort of brainwashed. I can’t remember a lot. But I also still think your paintings are good.” 

Yuuri wrinkles his nose. “I bet you have to say that.”

“I don’t have to compliment you unless you order me to.”

Yuuri stops talking for a moment, clearly wondering whether he’s ever done that. “Which you haven’t,” Victor adds. “I would remember.”

“Yeah, because your memory is so good,” Yuuri mumbles, but he looks sort of pleased. 

“So…are you okay with it?”

“With what? I sort of spaced out after Yakov recognized you.”

“With helping me search for the reason why I died.”

Yuuri frowns. “I mean, I don’t see how I could be much help. I’m stuck here.”

“Yes, but I need your permission to leave.”

“Oh.” Yuuri’s face is suddenly carefully blank. “I…yes. That makes sense.”

Victor takes in the expression, Yuuri’s slowing heartbeat. “You’re unhappy.”

Yuuri takes a corner of blanket in between his fingers, inspecting it. “No.”

Victor purses his lips. “You are. Why?”

Yuuri looks out the window. Eventually, he says, “I’ve just gotten used to having you around, is all.”

Victor tilts his head. “Yeah, but…I have my memory back, or part of it anyway, and you never wanted me in the first place, right? I don’t really belong here.”

Yuuri smiles. It doesn’t reach his eyes. “No. No, you don’t. You have permission to leave.”

Victor can feel the restriction lift from him. “But…”

“I’ll contact Yakov again to let him know you’re coming. I don’t have the money for a plane ticket, but I’ll bet he does.” Yuuri takes a deep breath. “You can borrow some of my clothes. The jumpsuit is a dead giveaway. Make sure to keep your neck covered, too.”

“I didn’t really mean right away—”

“What’s the use of putting it off? Why would you want to stay here?” Yuuri’s voice is cold, humorless. “Why would anyone want to stay with me?”

Victor winces. “Yuuri, I—”

“You have to do what I say, right? So leave.”

Victor lingers. “You said you brought death.”

Yuuri stiffens. “What?”

“When you had that fever. You said you bring death. What does that mean?”

Yuuri’s eyes flash. “Leave. Right now. Get out.”

“But—”

“Now!” Yuuri screams, and the effort causes him to start coughing. 

Victor feels his legs walking away even as his mind screams at him to go back, to help Yuuri. But he can’t. He can’t defy that kind of direct order.

And so it is that he leaves Yuuri’s house, and so it is that he leaves Yuuri, coughing and curling up in a ball and resolutely not looking out the window.

What did the world outside ever do for him, anyway? Bring him a moment of peace only to take it all away? He doesn’t need that.

He closes the curtains.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this went 0-100 real fast. i wasnt even planning on this happening yet but oh well as usual i will produce crap and then wash my hands of it


	5. Blue

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW: referenced suicide, pill mention, death mention, depressive thoughts. CW: referenced anxiety attack and self-harm by scratching
> 
> Again, not a happy chapter. Read with caution and please keep yourself safe!

“What do you mean he left?!”

“It’s exactly what it sounds like, Phichit. He wanted to leave, so he left. I told him he could.”

Phichit groans. “Yuuri, robots don’t just—”

“But cyborgs who regained their memory apparently do.” Yuuri rubs his eyes, feeling very exhausted. “I wasn’t going to make him stay with me when it wasn’t what he wanted, Phichit. It’s like he said. He doesn’t belong here. He’s Nikiforov. He belongs with—with great people, with—not me.”

“You are a great person. A great painter, a great friend, and you’re just _good_.”

Yuuri turns away from the screen, frowning. “No. I’m really not.”

“Please. I know you better than—”

“But you don’t know everything,” Yuuri says softly, looking back into Phichit’s eyes. “Please don’t fight me on this.”

Phichit bites his lip, then asks, “Yuuri, what happened with Yuuko?”

Yuuri freezes.

“I know that you blame yourself for a lot of things, but—Yuuri, Yuuko shouldn’t be—she wouldn’t want—”

Phichit has only a moment to look at Yuuri’s wide, terrified eyes before the video feed is forcibly cut off.

Yuuri curls into himself, gasping for air, not able to find it. He claws at his face frantically, as if the pain will make things right.

Like it will make up for the fact that he killed Yuuko.

He knows, though, that nothing will ever make up for that. He knows that all the pain in the world will never be able to take away the ugly, gaping darkness inside of him. 

He curls in deeper, hacking coughs wracking his body, and he keeps scratching. Because it may not make up for anything, but it _is_ what he deserves.

* * *

Getting around without an implant is difficult and frustrating, Victor finds, but not nearly as frustrating as the continuous, intense desire to return to Yuuri and check to make sure he’s okay. He passes it off as his training and fights the urge. What he’s doing is important too.

_the flash of hurt in his eyes, color dusting his cheeks, those ridiculous poodle pajamas, him passed out on the floor, the painting—_

Victor grits his teeth and moves forward.

Without an implant, he has to use the archaic machines at the train and airport, intended for the few remaining vestiges of people that don’t have implants at all. He manages it, though, and eventually he’s on his way to Russia. 

While he’s on the plane, he plans. He’ll go to his apartment. There must be a clue there somewhere. And then—

_“why would anyone want to stay with me—”_

Well, then, maybe he’ll go back. Yuuri didn’t say he had to stay gone, after all.

With that decided, he nods and stares out the window, wishing he could sleep.

Yakov meets him at the gate, looking him up and down critically. “You don’t look dead,” he finally says.

“I don’t really feel it either. Marvels of modern technology, I guess.” 

“Hm. Well, where do you want to go, then?”

“My apartment, please. I think there will be a clue there.”

On the drive over, Yakov asks curiously, “So, who was your ‘friend’?”

“Oh, Yuuri? He’s the young Japanese man the Initiative assigned me to.”

“I thought the Initiative only loaned out their cyborgs to sick people. That was the campaign promise, anyway. What was it…‘a new lease on life for everyone’?”

“He is sick. Some kind of mysterious incurable disease. Nobody really knows how long he has to live.”

Yakov glances over at Victor incredulously. “And you just left?”

“He told me to,” Victor says, confused. “He knew this was important.”

“Oh, Vitya.” Yakov shakes his head. “Someday you’ll learn that some things are more important than others.”

Victor blinks, intending to ask what he means, but they’ve already arrived at Victor’s apartment.

Victor walks up to the counter, to the receptionist he’s seen so many times, and puts on his most winning smile. “Hey.”

They scream.

Victor’s day has been full of confusion. His brows furrow. “Um, sorry?”

“Your friend said you were dead,” the receptionist gasps. “What is this? Was he pulling some kind of prank? Because—there was a body bag, and—I’ve already sold off your unit—”

“Which friend?”

“Um, blonde? Kind of mature-looking?” 

Victor didn’t exactly have many friends. “Chris.”

Yakov grumbles, “I’m not driving you to Switzerland, before you ask.”

“I wasn’t going to. Did he move back?”

“Yeah.” Yakov pauses. “Around the time you…left, actually. Didn’t provide an explanation.”

“Do you have his holoscreen address?”

Yakov rolls his eyes. “Of course.”

Victor turns his winning smile back on the receptionist. “Mind if we use the lobby? We won’t be long.”

“Go ahead,” they say, mumbling something under their breath about ghosts.

Yakov and Victor walk over to the lobby’s couch, and Yakov pulls up his holoscreen. “We’ll start with video enabled this time,” Yakov says. “Which I think is actually proper etiquette when someone is returning from the dead.”

“Yuuri was in his pajamas!”

Yakov stares at Victor dryly. “Mmhmm. Okay.”

Chris picks up quickly. “Yakov? I told you I don’t know anything about Victor—”

“That would be a pity,” Victor says amicably, getting in view of the screen. “Hi!”

Chris, to his credit, does not scream. He turns sheet white, and he swears in French, which Victor obviously understands. He knows a lot of languages now. “I was hoping I was wrong.”

“About what?”

Chris closes his eyes. “Yakov, I lied.”

Yakov snorts. “Clearly.”

“I didn’t want you to—I know he was like a son to you, and I figured—”

“You figured you wouldn’t tell me he had died?”

“I figured I wouldn’t tell you how,” Chris says, face pained.

Victor perks up. “Wait, you know?”

Chris turns even more pale. “You don’t?”

“Chris, I got brainwiped and reprogrammed by the Initiative. I don’t know much of anything.”

Chris taps an erratic rhythm on his pants. “I am not drunk enough for this,” he mutters. “Victor, I was supposed to come over that night for a movie. I knew you hadn’t been—very—happy, but—”

“Happy?”

“There were pills, Victor. A lot of them. Your b—you weren’t there, but I could sort of guess what had happened.”

Victor’s hearing fades out as he stares at his hands, reflexively clenching and unclenching the fabric of his pants. (Yuuri’s pants.) Yakov could be yelling or he could be deadly silent; he wouldn’t know either way. 

_The day he decided to do it, the sky was blue._

No. No. He doesn’t want to remember this.

_\--the sky was blue, but he didn’t care._

_The two L’s, love and life._

_He didn’t really have either of those, did he? Was there a point in existing without them?_

_Sure, he had Yakov, and Chris. But it wasn’t quite the same, not without his passion, not without his art._

_They’d drop him eventually, without paintings to show them that Victor Nikiforov was someone worthwhile._

_Better to bow out gracefully first._

No.

_Yakov has that new protégé anyway, right? That Yuri kid. And Chris has his boyfriend. Neither of them really need him. Neither of them really want him around._

_He stares up at the blue, blue sky._

_Well, I suppose this is it._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> victor's thinking was obviously incredibly flawed, and it will be refuted next chapter


	6. Help

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> cw: death mention, reference to suicide, pill mention

He’s pretty sure he doesn’t have tear ducts anymore, but he can feel his throat closing up anyway. “No,” he whispers.

“—ya. Vitya!”

He whips his head up to look at Yakov—and, while Victor didn’t know Yakov had tear ducts either and probably would have been fine never knowing, there the tears are. “Vitya, how could you?”

Victor stares ahead blankly. “I think…I think I thought nobody would care.”

Now Yakov is definitely yelling, and so is Chris, a mishmash of French and Russian that he can’t be bothered to untangle. He catches only snippets, more ‘how could you’s and ‘why would you ever’s. His gaze drifts over to the receptionist, who looks like she’s really regretting letting them use the lobby for Revelation Time. He can sympathize. This probably would have been better as a private conversation, or preferably a conversation that wasn’t happening at all.

He should have stayed with Yuuri.

“Victor, are you even listening?!”

“No,” Victor says honestly.

Yakov glares. “I don’t understand how you could even consider any of those things,” he says, seething. “Not when there were so many options in front of you. You could have told someone, Victor! You could have…” A punched-out sigh leaves him. “You could have told me.”

“Or me,” Chris offers. “Or both of us.”

“I know that.” Victor drags his hand over his face. “Now, I mean. Look, I don’t—I don’t feel connected to that anymore. I know that I was feeling hopeless because I had lost my inspiration to paint, and I know that I thought everyone would be better off without me burdening them, and I know that I thought you two would get over it. But I don’t _feel_ any of that. It’s all distant.” 

“That sounds awfully like a cop-out,” Yakov growls. Victor looks at the damp tracks left behind on his wrinkled face, and part of him wants to touch them, to see if they’re real. If he’s real.

“Maybe,” he finally responds. “But it’s also true.”

“That doesn’t mean it’ll be true forever,” Chris says softly. “I don’t know why you’re back, because I know for a fact you would never willingly sign up for the Initiative. But now that you are back, however it happened, I don’t think I could manage losing you again.”

“I don’t even know if that’s possible, to do something to yourself as a cyborg,” he jokes, and both of their faces turn murderous. “Kidding!”

“It’s not something to joke about,” Yakov says, his tone somber. “I need you to promise that you’ll tell someone next time, if there is one, and I need you to be serious about it.”

“Yes, okay.”

Yakov slumps, like the only thing that’s been keeping him upright was not knowing. Chris leans back in his chair. They both look exhausted.

“I’m sorry,” Victor tries. 

“I don’t think so,” Chris says thoughtfully. “I don’t think you are. But thank you for saying it anyway.”

Victor nods slowly. 

“Where have you been, anyway? Did the Initiative loan you out to some sick old guy?”

“No,” Yakov says, sitting back up. “They loaned him out to some sick young man in Japan, and Victor left him.”

“He told me to go!”

Chris is groaning. “Victor. You clueless nincompoop.” 

“I was going to go back!”

“How do you know he’ll still be there when you do, Vitya?” Yakov says tiredly. 

Victor opens his mouth, then closes it. The thought grows inside him, black and thick. What if Yuuri is…

“Look, I’m glad I got to see you. But he probably needs you more than we do.”

Victor kicks his feet at the carpet. “Yeah,” he mumbles. 

“Also, if you had just called me in the first place, you wouldn’t have had to go all the way to Russia,” Chris adds helpfully. “Glad to know you think so highly of me, by the way.”

Victor may not have tear ducts, but he can still simulate an embarrassed flush. “Hm.”

“Go back to him, Victor. You have your new lease on life now, yes? Give him his.”

Victor pauses, then hugs Yakov. “Thank you.”

“I sure hope that’s a thank you for the money I’ll have to pay for a next-day flight from Russia to Japan,” Yakov says grumpily, but a smile is tugging at the corner of his lips. 

“I want a hug too,” Chris says plaintively. “Where’s my boyfriend when I need him?”

“I’m in the next room,” a calm voice calls out through the holoscreen. “Like I told you an hour ago.”

Chris brightens. “Talk to you guys later, then. Especially you, Victor. You had better talk to me more later.”

“I will.” 

Chris ends the call, and Victor and Yakov get the heck out of dodge before the receptionist can kick them out, and the next day Victor is on a plane back to Japan.

He spends the journey back planning as he did before, but this time planning what he’ll say to Yuuri. Do they have “sorry I left you to die alone” balloons? A balloon would be nice, right?

He spends the train drive to Hasetsu agonizing over whether Yuuri will even be alive when he gets there. A lot can happen in 36 hours. He clenches the fabric of Yuuri’s pants again and hopes.

When he opens the door—he may not have an implant to interact with locked doors, but he is still very good at lockpicking—and charges up the stairs to find Yuuri pale as death, eyes closed. His synthetic heart stops.

“Yuuri? Yuuri! Yuuri, I’m so sorry, don’t be dead—”

“I’m not dead,” comes a pissed-off voice. “But you might be if you keep yelling while I’m trying to sleep.”

Victor pauses, then checks his internal clock and winces. It’s 3 AM. “Oops.”

Yuuri sighs into his covers. “Why are you even here, Victor?”

“I solved the mystery,” he says hesitantly. “I remembered how I died.”

“I thought you didn’t belong here,” Yuuri says bitterly.

“I mean...I don’t know if I do or not, but you need me.”

“Do I.” His voice is starting to get dangerous, but Victor misses it.

“Yeah, because you’re sick. You need someone to help you.”

“I am so _tired_ of everyone telling me what I need!” Yuuri yells suddenly, and Victor draws back, shocked. “Why does nobody ever care about what I _want_?” 

Victor clears his throat. “What…um, what do you want?” 

“I want to see my friends and my family. I want to be different. I want…I want Yuuko to be alive,” he says, his voice breaking near the end. “And most of all, most of all in this entire godforsaken world, I want things to just be _over already_!”

“Don’t say that,” Victor says lowly. “Don’t you dare say that.”

“Why not?! Why can’t I have that one thing?! Why do I have to play at being strong just because—”

“Because people need you! Because people love you! Because, for the sake of everything holy, Yuuri, because you don’t want to end up like me!” Victor bursts out.

Yuuri falls silent, eyes assessing.

“Want to know how I died? I killed myself.” It’s the first time he’s said it out loud. “I took a bunch of pills and I killed myself and I’m only here because of some malfunction with my implant. I didn’t think anyone would care. But people do care, and it will matter if you die, and if you think the world wouldn’t be that much less bright for not having you you are so incredibly misguided! You don’t get to die yet, Katsuki Yuuri, not while I’m around. Not while you still have a choice,” he finishes hotly. 

Yuuri’s silent for a while. Then, tears filling his eyes, he murmurs, “Hypocrite.”

Victor doesn’t expect that. “What?”

“I said you’re a hypocrite. You get to die but I don’t? You have no idea what I have to live with every day. You have no idea.”

Victor scowls. “You won’t tell me!”

“What makes you think you deserve to know?” Yuuri snaps, angry tears still falling from his eyes. It occurs to him, in a distant sort of way, that he probably looks like a mess. Whatever. 

“You need to tell someone!”

“And why on earth should that be you?!”

“Because I know what it’s like to carry something deep within you, and I know how it feels to think you can’t tell anyone, and I know how much that destroys you, and I don’t want that for you! I’m trying to _help_ , Yuuri!”

“I killed someone,” Yuuri screams. “How can you help with that?” 

This time Victor is the one stunned into silence. Yuuri turns away. 

“I killed my friend Yuuko and her three babies,” Yuuri says, voice almost deadly calm, “So I don’t need help, and I don’t want it, either. I’m going to die, because I deserve it, and because it’s the only way to make sure nothing like this ever happens again to the people I love.” 

Victor can’t really think of anything to say to that.

Yuuri laughs humorlessly. “I told you you had no idea.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> many mysteries will be tied up next chapter


	7. Fault

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> warning for mention of death during childbirth, severe anxiety

When Victor finally speaks, it’s to say dubiously, “You don’t seem like a serial killer.”

Yuuri makes a small sound, something like a yelp. “I’m not a serial killer!”

“But you said—”

“I said I killed them. It was my fault. I didn’t say it was on purpose.”

Victor considers this. “So what happened, then?”

Yuuri groans, flopping against his pillows. “This really couldn’t have waited until morning?”

“I’m curious now,” Victor says, pouting.

“Fine. Okay. I had this dream a few months back where I killed anyone I touched. I thought it was just a dream, but… a few days later, my friend Yuuko was going into labor,” Yuuri says, eyes dark. “The babies were early. Her husband Takeshi was in another town and couldn’t get there on time, so she asked me to come with her to the hospital.

I got there as fast as I could, of course. She looked like she was in so much pain. She held out her hand, and…” Yuuri’s eyes close. “She looked so happy, and then she shut her eyes, and I heard this—beeping, and—”

Yuuri takes a deep, shaky breath. His voice is dull. “They couldn’t save the babies, either. I still remember Takeshi’s face when he finally got to the hospital. He lost everything, all in one moment. And it’s all my fault.

I haven’t touched anyone since then, and a little while later I got really sick. It’s probably a divine punishment or something. But it doesn’t matter. It’s what I want. If I die, nobody else has to.”

Victor is silent for a while. Eventually he says, struggling to keep his voice even, “So…let me get this straight. You had a bad dream that told you you could kill people by touching them, and then you touched someone in premature labor, and they happened to die, and so you think your bad dream is the truth and you’re letting yourself die to make up for it. That’s…that’s seriously the thing that you are saying to me right now.”

Yuuri pauses, then scowls. “You don’t believe me.”

“No. I really don’t,” Victor says coldly. “You know what your files say?”

“What?”

“Your medical records.”

“No.”

“They say that you have severe anxiety.”

“And?”

“And ‘it’s my fault something bad happened despite the lack of evidence to support that idea’ is a classic intrusive thought. It sucks what happened to your friend, Yuuri, but pretending like you’re responsible won’t change anything.”

“But I am responsible!”

“Oh yeah?” Victor takes a glove off, and before Yuuri has time to tell him to stop, he takes Yuuri’s hand in his.

Yuuri’s eyes start to fill with tears, and he screams, “No—you’ll—”

“I’m fine, Yuuri. See? I’m still here.”

Yuuri looks around wildly, trying to free his hand from Victor’s firm grasp, but he’s sick and Victor is a cyborg. “It’s—you’re going to—”

“No, Yuuri. I’m not going to do anything.” Victor gazes at Yuuri, who’s still crying and thrashing around ineffectually. 

“You’re a cyborg, you’re already dead, it must not count—”

“Yuuri. It wasn’t your fault.” 

Yuuri searches Victor’s eyes, then begins to sob in earnest, folding in on himself. “I miss her. I miss her so much. She…if it’s my fault, then…maybe I can fix it, maybe if I suffer enough…”

Victor keeps holding Yuuri’s hand, but he uses his free hand to stroke Yuuri’s back. “I know. I know. But it’s done, and it’s not your fault.”

Yuuri falls asleep like that, with Victor’s hand in his and tear tracks still drying on his cheeks.  
  


* * *

  
When Yuuri wakes up and finds Victor still holding his hand, he has a moment to think _no, get away, you’ll get hurt,_ before he remembers.

Victor touched him. He touched him, and he’s fine.

The doubts still set in, but when he looks up and sees Victor smiling peacefully at him, for a moment they seem a little quieter.

“Do you think you can hold down breakfast today?” Victor asks. “Maybe an omelette?”

“Yeah,” Yuuri says. When Victor finally lets go, he can feel the anxiety coming back—was any of it real?—but he steels himself and calls Phichit.

Phichit answers the call, eyes wide and frantic. “Yuuri! Are you okay? You never call me first, what’s—”

“Nothing’s wrong,” Yuuri assures him. “I just…need to tell you something.”

Phichit listens to everything. At the end of it, he just says quietly, “Oh, Yuuri.”

“I—I still don’t know if it’s—if I was wrong. I’m trying to tell myself that I was making it all up, but it’s…hard.” Yuuri takes a huge gulp of air. “I’m trying.”

Phichit nods slowly, then admits, “I thought it probably had something to do with Yuuko. The timing was just too much of a coincidence. But Yuuri, I promise that it wasn’t your fault. I talked to her doctors and apparently she’d been having complications throughout the entire pregnancy, and premature births are really hard on the mother, you know?”

“I know.” 

Phichit pauses. “One more thing, Yuuri.”

“Yeah?”

“Have you considered…well, I mean, have you thought about whether your illness might be psychosomatic?”

Yuuri frowns. “Like…I’m faking?”

“No, like your mind didn’t know how to process all of that guilt and anxiety and took it out on your body. It does happen.”

“I mean…maybe.”

“Get a therapist, Yuuri. You need to talk to someone about this.” Phichit sighs. “I wish you would have talked to _me_ about this earlier.”

“I didn’t want any of you to know how bad I was,” Yuuri mumbles. 

“I’ve told you before, but you’re not bad. You’re one of the best people I know.”

Yuuri squirms uncomfortably. “But—”

“But nothing. You don’t have to believe me, but you do have to promise you’ll make an appointment with somebody. Over holoscreen, if you have to.”

“Fine. I will.”

“Okay. And Yuuri?”

“Yes?”

“I love you.” Phichit grins. “You can fall all over yourself now.”

Yuuri sticks his tongue out at Phichit. “You suck.”

“Nah, you love me back.”

“Yeah.” Yuuri smiles, and it feels like maybe the first real one he’s had in a while. “I do.”

They say their goodbyes, and Victor finishes the omelette, frowning. He doesn’t understand why he felt so irritated when they said they loved each other, but he did. 

Whatever. Another mystery for another time.

And anyway, when Yuuri thanks him for the food and smiles one of those genuine smiles at him, it feels like it doesn’t matter.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> you may notice that this had another chapter that i took down. i wasn't really satisfied with it, so i reworked the direction this story is going in and now i feel a lot better about it. sorry about that, though
> 
> yuuri isnt done with worrying about whether he killed yuuko, btw. itll take a while.


	8. Warm

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> cw: anxiety attack mention, disordered thinking, therapy

Yuuri schedules that therapy session, and the therapist listens to him, asking clarifying questions along the way. Then, she says bluntly, “Did your doctors even go to medical school?”

“I beg your pardon?”

“I can’t believe it didn’t even occur to a single one that this wasn’t an unknown incurable disease, but a series of psychosomatic symptoms due to extreme psychological stress. I swear. Did they sleep through their mental health classes?” She shakes her head. “Anyway, you need to touch more people.”

Yuuri immediately blanches. “I—but—”

“Not by yourself,” she reassures. “Exposure therapy is a lot safer under controlled conditions, which means we can start with me doing a session at your house.”

“But what if you’re wrong? What if I am contagious? What if it was just Victor, what if—”

“What’s the worst case scenario?” she asks calmly.

“You die!”

“Then I die in a situation of my choice. I can think of worse things. But what’s more likely to happen?”

Yuuri squirms, then admits, “Things are…okay.”

“Right. I always say anxiety is composed of two parts. First, you overestimate how bad the future will be, and second, you underestimate your capacity to deal with bad things happening.” She smiles. “You’ve managed to make it this far, Yuuri. You’re a lot stronger than you think.”

“Thanks, I guess,” he says doubtfully. 

“I can make a house visit next week. Until then, your…friend, Victor. I’d like you to keep holding his hand.”

Yuuri peeks at Victor. “Um. Why?”

“It’ll remind you that it’s okay and it wasn’t just some one-off thing. So that’s your homework for now. We’ll build up to the rest.” 

“Okay.”

“I have to go now, but I’ll see you next week. You can always call me if things get suddenly worse, though.”

“All right. Thanks.”

The call ends, and Yuuri heaves a large sigh before curling up on his bed and gazing out the window again. (Victor had made sure to open the curtains.)

Victor is by his side in a heartbeat. “Yuuri? What’s wrong?”

“I feel so ridiculous,” Yuuri mumbles, voice muffled by his arms. “I’ve made everyone worry so much and it’s all in my head?”

“Something being in your head doesn’t make it any less real,” Victor admonishes softly. “I should know.”

Yuuri nods, eyes downcast, then looks up. “I’m sorry I called you a hypocrite when you confessed something so important. I know you were trying to help.”

“It’s fine.”

“You have your own problems and I’m forcing you to deal with mine. I’m sorry about that too.”

Victor frowns and kneels down by the bed. “Yuuri, I came back because I wanted to. I’m not being forced to do anything.”

“Except for everything I order you to do.”

Victor snorts. “What have you ordered me to do, ever? To leave when I was being a jerk? To put away a painting that was important to you? Look, Yuuri, my point is you never ordered me to care about you. But I do. And that’s why I want to help, not because of any training or any orders or anything, but because the idea of you not being here is paralyzing.”

Yuuri slowly starts to turn red. “Oh. Okay.”

“What, do people not tell you they care about you often?”

“My idols don’t, anyway.”

Victor smiles, pleased. “Then I’ll have to say it more often.”

Yuuri hides under the covers and grumbles, “Please don’t.”

“No, don’t hide your cute red face from me!” Victor teases, partially because Yuuri’s face is objectively cute and mostly because he knows it will make Yuuri blush even more. 

The days pass. Yuuri tells his parents, and they tell him they love him. He talks to Phichit again, and Phichit makes fun of him for his therapy-mandated robot handholding. (“This really is turning out to be one of those movies,” he says delightedly, and Yuuri wishes he could throw one of his pillows at him.)

The first time Victor holds out his hand, Yuuri has an anxiety attack, and when he finally touches Victor’s hand, he starts crying again. Victor rubs circles into Yuuri’s hand and they get through it.

The second time, Victor starts talking to distract Yuuri as soon as he notices that Yuuri’s breathing is getting faster. He talks about Yuri Plisetsky, the spitfire of a child painting prodigy, and the first time they met. 

“He came straight up to me at a gallery opening and told me he was going to…what were the words he used… ‘make me cry about how much I sucked compared to him’,” Victor says, surprising a chuckle out of Yuuri. “He is quite good, but I don’t recall ever crying about it.”

In return, Yuuri talks about how he met Phichit and their various art school escapades. After that, it becomes sort of a thing—Yuuri holds Victor’s hand and they talk about their lives. Victor talks about Chris and Yakov and the parents that never loved him, and Yuuri talks about his family and Phichit and, eventually, about Yuuko.

“She was so kind,” he says, voice shaking slightly. “She always helped me out when we were younger, always encouraged me. She was always the first person to look over my paintings and—hah. She never held back about whether she liked it or not, but at the end she always told me to keep trying.” 

“She sounds wonderful,” Victor says, squeezing Yuuri’s hand. 

“Yeah, she was. I actually—I sort of had a crush on her.” Yuuri laughs weakly, and Victor looks away so that Yuuri can’t see his frown, especially because he doesn’t understand why it’s there in the first place. “When she first started dating Takeshi, I couldn’t deal with it at all, which is sort of why I ended up going to art school all the way in Detroit.” He coughs. “But anyway.”

“Hm,” Victor says, still feeling a little bit pissed off.

“She’s actually also the person who introduced me to you,” Yuuri says thoughtfully. “She had all of these subscriptions to art magazines and she would always show me your work. That’s when I started collecting prints of your work and stuff.”

Victor isn’t pissed off anymore. He beams. “She had good taste.”

Yuuri makes a face. “You’re so conceited.”

“Oh, only a little.”

Yuuri’s holoscreen starts to go off, and Yuuri absentmindedly picks up the call with his free hand. “Hey, Phichit.”

Phichit starts to smirk. “Hey, Victor’s hand.”

Yuuri looks adorably confused. “What?”

Phichit waves his hand pointedly, and Yuuri looks down at his to see it still entwined with Victor’s. Yuuri’s eyes widen, and he frees his hand. Victor pouts.

“You know, I’m like ninety percent sure when your therapist said to hold hands with Victor, she meant it in a non-romantic way.”

“It is!” Yuuri protests. “There is no romance here.”

“Mmhmm,” Phichit says lightly. “Sure. Other than ours, a romance that will last the ages.”

Victor involuntarily clenches his teeth, until he notices that Phichit is staring at him thoughtfully. He rearranges his face to something more neutral. 

“Anyway, I wanted to tell you about my gallery opening last night.”

Yuuri brightens. “Oh, right, how did that go?”

“It got a lot of good reception! There are some people calling me the Pride of Thailand. I met a super cute guy, too…”

They continue to talk for a while, until Yuuri falls asleep.

There’s a silence, until Phichit says, “Hey, Victor.”

“Yes?”

“Yuuri is very important to me.”

“So I’ve gathered,” Victor says. The holoscreen isn’t on him, so he’s free to scowl all he wants.

“We’ve been best friends for five years, and I feel like I know him pretty well, which is why I can say pretty authoritatively that he deserves the best, and only the best. So if you think you can give that to him, then I’m not going to interfere.” He pauses. “Much. But if you’re planning on leaving him again, then I’m going to have to politely request that you don’t get him attached.”

Victor blinks. “I’m not going to leave.”

“Is that so? That’s good to hear. Well, then. I only have one last thing to say, then.”

“What is that?”

“I don’t have a shovel, but I could easily procure one.” He can almost hear the wink in Phichit’s voice. “So be on your best behavior, all right?”

Victor opens his mouth, then whispers harshly, “Wait, was that supposed to be a shovel talk? Because we’re not—”

“Oh, I know,” Phichit says chirpily. “Just something to keep in mind. Just in case, you know.”

Then he ends the call, leaving Victor staring at the blinking holoscreen. He looks down at Yuuri, sleeping peacefully, and presses his lips together.

It probably isn’t a good sign, he reflects, that thinking about ‘just in case’ makes him feel so warm.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> oh victor


	9. Love

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> cw: therapy, anxiety attacks, mention of OCD obsessive thoughts (scrupulosity subtype)

The next week comes, and with it the time for Yuuri’s therapy session. Victor gets the door, and the therapist walks up the stairs and sits on Yuuri’s bed. He goes pale and shies away.

“Yuuri, it’s all right,” the therapist says in a soothing voice. “Remember what we talked about last time? You’re absolutely strong enough to do this.” She holds out her hand. 

Impulsively, Victor holds out his hand on Yuuri’s other side. Yuuri is hyperventilating again by this point, but he manages a shaky grateful smile to Victor and entwines their hands.

Then, with a deep breath, he touches the tip of his index finger to the therapist’s palm. 

Immediately, he closes his eyes tightly and hides his head against Victor’s chest, finger still touching the therapist’s hand. Victor’s eyes widen minutely and he wills himself to focus on how important this is for Yuuri right now and not on how right Yuuri feels pressed against him.

“I can’t look,” Yuuri says in a trembling voice. “Victor, is she—”

“She’s fine,” Victor says calmingly, squeezing Yuuri’s hand.

“She’s also right here,” the therapist says with a hint of amusement. “I’m perfectly well. See?”

Yuuri opens his eyes one at a time, peeking at the therapist. Finally, he says tremulously, “I’m…what if it needs to be the whole hand…”

“Do you think you can try it?” the therapist asks. 

“Y-yeah.” Biting his lip, he takes the therapist’s hand. This time he keeps his eyes open, peering carefully at her to make sure she’s not showing any ill effects.

“See? I’m right as rain.” She smiles, eyes crinkling at the corners. “I mean, a touch of arthritis, but that was already there.”

Yuuri exhales, and it’s as if he’s letting out all the air from a breath he took a long time ago. “Yeah. I feel…really silly.”

“No need for that,” she says dismissively. “I have OCD, and I used to think I was the Devil sometimes.”

“Really?” Yuuri says with interest.

“Oh, yeah. The Devil, a secret sleepwalking serial killer, one of those people who yells at retail workers…you name a bad thing, I’ve probably convinced myself I was it at one point or another.”

Yuuri nods thoughtfully. “How did you stop?”

“Lots of therapy, medication, and time.” She pats his hand. “You’ll get there.”

Yuuri looks down at his hands, held on either side, and whispers, “How do I convince myself I deserve to get there in the first place?”

She pauses. “That’s a good question. Your mind is just going to tell you you don’t deserve anything, much less happiness, the entire way, and you’re going to have to tell yourself you deserve as much as anybody else. You won’t believe it, but you keep telling yourself, and then…” She shrugs. “Well, you’ll have good days and bad days, and on the best days you’ll love yourself and on the worst days you’ll think you deserve to die. But a good day always ends up coming eventually.”

Yuuri frowns. “That’s not very helpful.”

She laughs, shaking her head. “No, it’s not, but I don’t think you’re paying me to lie to you either.” She lets go of Yuuri’s hand. “Okay, ready for homework?”

“Yeah, I guess.”

“Good. I want you to touch at least three people’s hands. Full contact, if you can manage it, but I’ll accept a finger touch as well for now. I also want you to try getting out of bed at least once a day.” 

“But—”

“No buts. If you can’t do it I won’t hold it against you, but I wouldn’t have asked if I hadn’t thought you could.”

Yuuri heaves a sigh. “Okay.” 

“All right. We’ll meet again next week. Your choice whether it’s in person or over holoscreen.”

She leaves after that, and Yuuri watches as she goes, then curls up on himself again.

“Yuuri?” Victor asks, concerned. “What’s wrong?”

“I just need to calm down,” Yuuri answers, voice a higher pitch than normal. “That was a lot.”

Victor squeezes Yuuri’s hand again, a small sign of comfort. “But you did it.”

“Yeah. I did.”

Victor makes to stand up, saying, “I’ll make you one of your favorites, okay?”, but Yuuri stops him, looking almost embarrassed.

“Um…could you keep holding my hand? Just for a little bit.”

Victor’s heart melts. “Yeah. Yeah, of course. As long as you need.”

 _Forever_ , his traitorous mind supplies, and it takes everything he has to quash the thought.  
  


* * *

  
When Yuuri tells his parents they’ve been cleared to come over—Victor explained everything to his doctor and got permission—they visit the same day, along with Yuuri’s old art teacher, Minako. Victor watches fondly at the awe that lights up Yuuri’s face when he touches their hands. If he’s being honest, he watches most things that Yuuri does with fondness now. 

Victor is starting to realize what’s going on. He may be fairly oblivious, but he’s not completely out of the loop when it comes to his emotions, and it’s becoming pretty clear that he’s got feelings for Yuuri of a less-than-completely-platonic variety. He figures it was probably unavoidable, in the end. How could anyone not fall for someone as strong and beautiful and kind as Yuuri? But it doesn’t really matter. Yuuri doesn’t feel the same way, and Victor has his doubts he ever could. Why would he fall in love with a cyborg when he has actual functional human options around?

However, as much as Victor tries to convince himself of that, when Yuuri leans against him on their daily walks downstairs, or when he wordlessly holds out his hand for Victor to hold when he’s feeling particularly anxious, he can’t deny the spark of hope that flares in his chest.

Therapy continues, and Yuuri starts to get stronger, able to walk on his own and make short forays out into town. As a celebration, Phichit is planning to fly over from Bangkok to visit. “After all,” he says, eyes twinkling, “Everybody else has gotten some hand-touching action now except for me. I feel incredibly left out.”

Yuuri had just rolled his eyes, while Victor smiled through clenched teeth. As much as he knows Phichit and Yuuri are probably just friends, it’s hard for him to keep from being jealous anyway.

Victor would one day credit this visit with changing everything. But for now, he plasters on his fake smile and watches over the person he’s beginning to realize he loves, and he quietly fantasizes about a world in which he could be loved by someone like Yuuri.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> world's shortest therapy session
> 
> therapist's ocd/advice is based off of my own experiences, so, yanno. take with salt lol. i'm not a terribly optimistic person but i do believe in those good days coming eventually ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯
> 
> next time, phichit


	10. Shattered

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> tw: alcohol use, drunkenness

Yuuri isn’t really the type to bounce off the walls. His excitement manifests itself in quieter ways, which is why he’s smiling to himself, humming a little tune. He checks his holoscreen every once in a while for the time.

Victor is conflicted. Yuuri looks adorable like this, which is good, but he’s also being adorable for someone _else_ , which is…less good. 

“I hope Phichit doesn’t have too much trouble getting here,” Yuuri says after a moment of silence. “He’s never been good with the Japanese train system.”

“You did give him very detailed instructions, though,” Victor says patiently. “If he doesn’t get here, it’s really his own fault.”

Yuuri chuckles. “Yes, I suppose so.”

At that moment, a knock sounds, and Yuuri visibly brightens. “I’ll get it!”

Victor follows behind him—in case he falls or something, he tells himself—as Yuuri moves as fast as he can down the stairs. Yuuri throws open the door, and there stands Phichit, beaming and waving. “Hi!”

Victor is expecting the hesitant hand touch, but he’s not expecting the subsequent joyful laughter, and he’s _definitely_ not expecting (or prepared for) Yuuri to draw Phichit into a huge hug.

“I’ve missed you so much,” Yuuri whispers. “It’s not quite the same when you’re not around.”

“I’ve missed you too,” Phichit says, rubbing Yuuri’s back, then steps back. “Show me around! I’ve never been in your new place.”

Yuuri huffs. “It’s not much, trust me, but sure.”

“Oh, nothing could be worse than the dorms.”

“That’s true.” 

Victor, feeling very left out, steps forward and extends his hand. “It’s nice to properly meet you, by the way.”

Phichit looks him over calculatingly, shakes his hand, then says lightly, “Yes, nice to meet you as well. Anyway, Yuuri?”

They embark on the short tour, Victor trailing behind and pouting as imperceptibly as he knows how. When they get to the locked room, Yuuri pauses, then says, “Hey, Victor, could you stay outside for this one?” He doesn’t word it as an order—he wouldn’t—but Victor has never known how to say no to Yuuri.

With a frozen, polite smile, he nods and stays outside. He knows Yuuri has been working on paintings again now that the tremors in his hand are largely gone, but he’s never let Victor see them. He thought he was just shy about them, but apparently not. Apparently it’s just Victor.

The locked room is pretty well soundproofed, but Victor can still hear snippets of hushed whispers.

_“—about him?”_

_“Yeah, but you can’t let him know—”_

_“—pretty sure—”_

_“Don’t say that. It’s not—”_

_“—really believe that?”_

_“—please, just let me—”_

There’s only silence for a few moments, then the door opens. Both of them are frowning, until Phichit claps. “All right! Enough of that. I brought duty-free alcohol. Heaven knows neither of you know how to have fun on your own.”

Victor immediately protests, “I know how to have fun!”

“I read one of your interviews once,” Phichit says sweetly as he fishes around in his luggage. “They asked you about your hobbies and you said you liked looking up pictures of poodles on Google and picking out new acrylic mediums.”

Victor purses his lips and says petulantly, “Well, Chris always knew how to have enough fun for the two of us anyway.”

“Christophe Giacometti? Yeah, he’s a blast, but that doesn’t make you less of a wet blanket.”

“Wait, you know him?”

“He was a visiting art teacher for our figure drawing class for a semester,” Phichit says, then adds with a wink, “That’s not all he taught us, though.”

Yuuri chokes and launches forward to put a hand over Phichit’s mouth. “No! I thought we agreed—ew, Phichit, don’t lick my hand—”

“There was no agreement. You ordered and I ignored,” Phichit says dismissively. “Hey, Victor, did you know Yuuri was the star of Chris’ impromptu pole dancing class?”

“Nooo,” Yuuri moans. 

Victor perks up. “Really? Yuuri, why did you never mention that?”

“Give me some of that,” Yuuri demands, gesturing at the bottle of liquor now held triumphantly in Phichit’s hands. “You traitor.”

Phichit pours cups for all of them, smiling deviously.

As it turns out, while Victor can ingest the alcohol, he can’t actually feel its effects. He doesn’t really mind, though. He wouldn’t want to miss Yuuri’s slowly reddening cheeks, or his adorably slurred speech, or his proclivity for stripping when drunk.

 _Definitely_ not the last one.

At some point, Yuuri asks hazily, “Hey, Phichit, remember—remember when you said—the whole thing ‘bout, ‘bout pictures of Victor and how hot he was?”

“Yes,” says Phichit, clearly amused and also very clearly not drunk. “I remember.”

“I want them.”

“The pictures?”

“Yes the pictures,” Yuuri snaps, but the impact is lessened by his swaying. 

“Why not take pictures of Victor yourself? He’s right here.” Phichit says reasonably. “And still hot.”

“Because then he’d notice,” Yuuri says, nodding at his obvious logic. “And it’s a seeeeeecret.”

“What is?” Victor prompts, and Phichit frowns and makes a slicing motion across his neck.

Yuuri is already responding, though. “Paintings. Paintings of Victor. Lots of ‘em.”

Victor’s eyes widen. “Oh?”

“Yeah, but don’t tell him,” Yuuri says importantly, raising a finger to his mouth. “‘Cause it’s a secret.”

Victor is grinning now, but Phichit is saying, “Okay, that’s quite enough—”

“Wanna know why it’s a secret?” Yuuri interrupts.

“Sure,” Victor says.

Phichit hisses, “This really isn’t—”

“He might get the wrong idea,” Yuuri says solemnly.

Victor’s heart runs cold. “What…would that wrong idea be?”

“That I want to be with him,” Yuuri says, leaning forward like it’s confidential, which he supposes it is, to him. Phichit winces and closes his eyes. “But it can’t happen.”

Feeling like his heart is shattering, Victor whispers, “Why?”

“Well, I’m me, and he’s…you know.” Yuuri shrugs. “It’s just how it is.”

“Oh. Right.” Victor stands up, and his throat feels like it’s closing up again. It’s one thing to think it, and another thing entirely to hear it from Yuuri himself. 

Phichit says desperately, “He doesn’t mean it like that, Victor, he—”

“Yeah, no, it’s fine. I get it.” He puts on his well-worn fake smile. “I just need to charge for the night.”

“But—”

Victor sees something vaguely charging-station-like in the corner and says, “Oh, there it is. Well, night, guys.”

The last thing he hears before blocking out everything and pretending to sleep is, “Victor, I know that’s a bathroom scale! I weighed myself on it earlier!”

He can’t really bring himself to care, though.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> please note the updated chapter count! this'll be ending in two chapters, unless i can find a way to prolong it lol
> 
> yuuri: adds another heaping layer onto the misunderstanding lasagna  
> victor: emits a single tear


	11. Ledge

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> cw: depressive thoughts

As soon as they’re both asleep, he walks over to Yuuri and stares down at him. Then, with one last sad smile, he touches his finger to Yuuri’s palm and leaves.

He goes to find one of those street corner clunky touchscreen interfaces that Hasetsu never bothered to replace with something more implant-friendly. He inputs Chris’ holoscreen address—luckily, Yakov had written it down for him—and leans against the wall of the booth, feeling empty.

As he waits for Chris to pick up, he laughs at himself. What a weak person he is, to be so affected by the object of his affections not reciprocating. But without the light of hope flickering in him, and with Yuuri getting better every day, and with Phichit there to take care of him, he can’t help but wonder what point there is in staying.

And honestly? It hurts. Not that Yuuri doesn’t love him—that hurts too, but it’s the sort of thing he’s gotten used to. No, it hurts that Yuuri doesn’t love him because of who he _is_. Victor is used to people wanting him to change, to be more this and less that, but from Yuuri of all people? It opens up a darkness in him that he thought had vanished for good.

Chris picks up, frown evident in his voice. “Sorry, who is this?”

“Victor.”

Chris pauses, then yells, “Victor, it’s been weeks! I know you have a terrible memory, but I did ask you to call me more often, not once in a blue—”

“You told me to tell someone,” Victor says dully.

“What?”

“Next time I wanted to…to leave.”

“Victor…?”

“This is me telling you. Let Yuuri know I’m sorry.” He hangs up, then. He doesn’t really want to be talked off the metaphorical ledge. He just wants to be done.

Turns out he is a hypocrite after all.

He uses the touchscreen to look up the nearest Initiative Center, and he starts to walk.

  


* * *

  
Yuuri wakes up with a pounding headache to the sound of his holoscreen going off wildly. He groans and accepts.

“Is this Yuuri Katsuki?” an urgent voice comes. 

“What…?” He wipes the sleep out of his eyes. “Sorry, who is this?”

“This is Christophe Giacometti. You’re friends with Victor, right?”

“Yeah, but—” Yuuri looks around the room. “He’s not here,” he says, surprised. 

“He called me from some street corner, so no crap,” Chris says, sounding irritated. “Look, this is important. Does he have some kind of—locator, or—”

“I wouldn’t know. What is this about?” Yuuri looks over at Phichit, who is awake now too, looking pale.

“He called me saying—well, he didn’t say much, but basically we had an agreement that he would call either me or Yakov if he was ever in a bad place. He said that the call was him letting me know, to tell you sorry, and hung up.” Chris sighs. “I tried calling back, but those touchscreen things don’t work like that, so I called Yakov and got your holoscreen address, and—did something happen?”

“I don’t…” Yuuri clears his throat. “I don’t remember. I was drinking last night, and…”

“Oh, no,” Phichit whispers, horrified. “I didn’t think—”

“What? You, whoever you are. What happened?” Chris demands.

“Victor has it pretty bad for Yuuri here,” Phichit says, glaring daggers at Yuuri as if to say, _and don’t you dare fight me on that_. “Last night, Yuuri was really out of it and he said something that sort of made it sound like they could never get together because of Victor.”

“What?!” Chris yelps. 

“He didn’t mean it like that!” Phichit defends. “He thinks he doesn’t deserve Victor because Victor’s all famous and—anyway, it doesn’t really matter. Yuuri, where would Victor go? You talk with him the most.”

_“I sort of miss not having my memories sometimes,” Victor admits, and Yuuri pulls a face._

_“What? Why? Why wouldn’t you want to know who you are?”_

_“I don’t know. I just feel like things were so much…cleaner. Not remembering my parents, not remembering how I died. I just had a job to do and that was it.”_

_“Well, I’m glad you’re you, even if that just makes one of us,” Yuuri says, squeezing Victor’s hand. “I would never want you any other way.”_

_Victor smiles, looking down at his lap, embarrassed but happy. “Maybe that’s enough, then,” he says._

“The Initiative,” Yuuri says, face drained of all its blood. “He’s going to try to get his memories wiped.”

He scrambles out of bed and down the stairs, pulling on a coat and shoes. Victor. He’s leaving. He’s leaving, and it’s Yuuri’s fault. Phichit follows after him, yelling, “Yuuri, wait!”

“There’s no time! He could already be there, he—”

“I know, Yuuri. But if you’re planning on catching up with him, you can’t go on foot.”

“I can’t drive, Phichit! You can’t drive either.”

“Not a car, no, but I brought my scooter.”

Yuuri processes, then groans. “This is totally one of those movies.”

“Yeah,” Phichit says sympathetically, patting him on the shoulder. “Yeah, it is.”

Yuuri gets on the scooter after Phichit hands him the keys, and he’s on his way to the Hasetsu Initiative Center. Hasetsu has become something of a popular hospice community in the past decade after years of population decline, so there’s a lot of need for caretakers.

He arrives at the Center, panting. The receptionist looks at him in his pajamas, with messy hair and a winter jacket, doubtfully. “Can I help you, sir?”

“Have you seen a cyborg?”

They smile politely. “Many, sir.”

“No, a particular one. Slicked-back silver hair, really striking features—”

“Can I ask why you need to know?” they interrupt.

“There was this huge misunderstanding, and he thinks I don’t want him and now he’s going to get his mind wiped and it’s all my fault because I was drunk and—”

The receptionist’s smile is frozen now, and he sighs internally and tries, “Because I love him?”

“Are you filming something?” they ask, brows furrowing. “I don’t see any cameras.”

“For heaven’s sake, no! I’m for real in love with a cyborg, and—look, have you seen him?”

“There was a suspicious caretaker return about thirty minutes ago,” they finally say, rolling their eyes. “Suspicious because it hadn’t been logged. But the caretaker said that they were no longer needed, so we took him in for processing.”

“Where would he be?”

“Behind those doors a way, but—wait—”

The man in pajamas bursts through the doors anyway. The receptionist sighs. “I was going to say we could just deliver him to the front,” they mumble petulantly. “But whatever. I suppose this is more dramatic. Going to have to report him to security, though.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *heaps a pile of cliches on your lap, then stares at you, dead in the eyes* these are yours now


	12. Start

Yuuri runs through the hallways, searching frantically for some room that looks like it involves ‘processing’. He finally, at the end of the hall, finds a door helpfully labeled just that.

He throws open the doors, only to find Victor, who is, this time, entirely naked.

He shrieks and throws an arm over his eyes.

“Yuuri?” Victor asks. “What are you doing here?”

“Seconded,” offers the hapless lab technician. “You don’t have access.”

“Victor, don’t do it,” Yuuri says, then folds in half and pants heavily. 

“Yuuri?”

“Give me a second,” he says through harsh breaths. “I may not be sick anymore, but I do still have asthma.”

Victor waits bemusedly until Yuuri straightens. “Victor, don’t do it.”

“You said that already.”

“You’re getting your mind wiped, right? You can’t. You can’t, because—”

“Because why, Yuuri?” Victor is frowning, but Yuuri can’t see because he still has his arm over his eyes. “You made your opinion of me fairly clear last night.”

“What did I even say?!” Yuuri moans. “I’m never drinking again.”

“You said you didn’t want to give me the wrong impression about the paintings. When I asked what the wrong impression was, you said you couldn’t be with me because I was, and I quote, ‘you know’.”

“Really, what is going on,” the technician asks, but they both ignore her.

“Good heavens, is that it?!”

“What, did you want to say more?” Victor snaps.

“If you had any sense in you at all you’d know that I meant we can’t be together because you’re a world-famous painter and all-around hot, nice, basically flawless person and I’m just me!” Yuuri shouts, then colors. 

“What?” Victor says, eyes wide.

“Am I dreaming?” the tech asks. They continue to ignore her.

“I don’t _deserve_ you, Victor. You deserve—great, beautiful things, and—and I’m—”

“A great, beautiful thing,” Victor says, getting out of his seat and moving closer. 

Yuuri puts his arm down slightly to peek at Victor.

“I don’t know what made you think you had the right to decide what I deserved,” Victor continues, “But regardless, if you think I deserve good things, then what I deserve is _you_ , because you are every good thing and more.”

The tech pinches herself, comments dryly, “Nope, not dreaming. Guess I’m just high.”

Victor moves even closer, until he’s right in front of Yuuri. “So, if you want me, what I’m saying is… you’ve always had me. All you have to do is say the word.”

Yuuri smiles helplessly, reaching out to touch Victor’s shoulders, then blanches. “Um. Victor.”

“Not quite the word I was thinking of, but—”

“No, Victor, you’re naked.”

Victor looks down. “Yes.”

“Can you be less so?” Yuuri says, getting progressively redder. “Before I say any words about anything?”

“Is that an order?” Victor teases.

“It is if you want me to do anything other than scream incoherently,” Yuuri says.

Victor gets dressed.

* * *

  
Yuuri spends the night in police holding. Turns out security was waiting outside the door the entire time, and they didn’t really care whether it was a heartfelt reunion or not, just that Yuuri was trespassing.

The next morning, Phichit pays bail—“No need to thank me, Chris wired me some of Yakov’s money which he got from selling Victor’s paintings so really you paid for it—” and Yuuri goes home with Victor.

Later that day, Yuuri calls Victor into the locked room. “Close your eyes, please,” he requests, and Victor is just as unable to say no to Yuuri as ever, so he concedes. 

Yuuri’s voice is concentrated as he paints. “You know, I’ve painted you so many times since you came here,” he says, “but I’ve never been able to get you quite right. There was always something missing.”

“Painting from reference is always easier,” Victor says agreeably.

“No, that’s not what I mean. What I mean is…” Yuuri tilts his head, thinking. Victor can hear the swish of his hair against the nape of his neck. “I started painting when I was eight or so, and it was only a few months after that that I found your work. I’ve told you that you were my idol, but that doesn’t really seem like an accurate enough word. You were my everything. So when you came here, when it was really you, even after you saved my life—don’t shake your head, Victor, you did—and even after we started talking, I had this vision of you in my head, this person that was larger than life and so much more than me, and I painted that vision of you instead of you. And it looked like you, but the feeling wasn’t there.”

“What do you mean?”

“You know when you’re trying to capture a sunset and it never is quite as beautiful as the real thing? You’re sort of like that.”

The corners of Victor’s lips curve. “Aw.”

“Stop moving your face,” Yuuri admonishes. “I don’t know how to say this right. It’s like…being around you is so warm, and all of the paintings were cold, because I didn’t know how to reconcile this image of the person I had up on the pedestal with the reality of someone who was right by my side.” Yuuri exhales slowly. “And I didn’t know how to deal with the fact that I was falling in love with who I saw there.”

Victor makes a small surprised noise. It’s the first time that Yuuri has said that particular word to his face.

“So I painted you, over and over again, and I told myself that you were still up on that pedestal, because as long as you were there I couldn’t love you. But you always found a way to climb down, to come to my bedside and hold my hand, and every time you did I wanted so much.”

Yuuri’s brush stops moving. Finally, quietly, he says, “I don’t think life gives us what we want. But I do think that we can get it anyway, sometimes, when we take it. So. This is me, taking it.”

Victor hears Yuuri moving towards him. “Can I open my eyes yet?”

“No.” Then Yuuri presses his lips against Victor’s, and it doesn’t really matter whether his eyes are open or not, because it turns out feeling Yuuri is almost better than seeing him anyway. Almost. But the best part is really that now he doesn't have to choose.

“Sorry,” Yuuri says when he finally breaks away. “You said you wanted one word, and I gave you, like, three hundred.”

“I am perfectly all right with that,” Victor breathes. 

And Yuuri smiles, and he kisses him again, and then he goes back to painting, and Victor tells Yuuri that he loves him, and Yuuri says it back.

A while later, they both stand in front of the painting, and as he opens his eyes, everything stops for a moment.

He has what seems like forever to stare at the painting, to see himself how Yuuri sees him, to see himself noticed and loved and not at all small and think, _well, I suppose this is the rest of my life._

He takes Yuuri’s hand. He can’t wait to get started.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> lol i was worried i wouldn't be able to bookend the fic like i normally do but SILLY ME I UNDERESTIMATED THE POWER...OF THE BOOKEND
> 
> anyway i ended up leaving some things unfinished--like how they keep victor out of the hands of the initiative and a scene i wanted to do with takeshi--but i'll leave that to your imagination lol
> 
> i'm really grateful for this fic because it got me writing again after a long slump, and even though it was difficult and frustrating sometimes, looks like we're finally here! i wanted to thank you all so much for reading, giving kudos, and especially for those who commented and helped keep me going <3 you're all wonderful, and i love you!
> 
> p.s.: i usually take requests over at my tumblr if any of you ever want more cyborg victor or anything else :) or if you just want to say hello, please do feel more than free to drop by!

**Author's Note:**

> thanks so much for reading! i'm at [anuninterestingperson](http://anuninterestingperson.tumblr.com) on tumblr if you ever wanna drop by!


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